


Up and Gone

by Poose



Series: The Reynolds Affair [1]
Category: American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Adultery, Bad Decisions, Cheating, Cunnilingus, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Married Characters, New York City, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 18:59:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6436462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poose/pseuds/Poose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very short, modern-day take on Maria and Alexander. Inspired by that one picture of LMM with his mouth open. You know, that one. </p><p>(Please mind the tags and consider your own comfort level before reading. <3)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up and Gone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gonfalonier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonfalonier/gifts).



Maria catches the eye of a man who is smoking on the curb. Her heart is pounding in her chest and she needs something to calm her down. She walks over to him and he turns around, offers her the open pack without her even having to ask. 

“Hey,” he says. "Rough afternoon?" 

“Hey, thanks,” she says, because goddamn does she need this. Maria squints and tries to place the guy before taking out a cigarette. It’s not her brand, but she can’t afford to be picky. It’s hot out, with barely a whisper of breeze in the air, but he cups his hand around the lighter anyways. The hairs on her legs prickle as his fingers slide away from hers. "Something like that." 

The air in her lungs is hot even without the smoke, but it helps. They stand side by side on the pavement, smoking, and after a minute he says, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Maria points her red nails in the direction of uptown, “I live a couple blocks away,” she says, “I bring the dog down here sometimes?”

“Maybe that’s it,” he says, and his eyes linger on her mouth. Her hair hangs damp against her neck from the summer heat. When she goes inside she’ll have to take a shower and hang her clothes out on the landing. Otherwise James will know she's been smoking. He always knows.

She remembers now where she's seen him: at the cafe where she occasionally picks up shifts during her breaks. He comes in, orders a couple of cortados over the course of a few hours, ears covered by noise cancelling headphones, fingers flying over the keys of his battered laptop. Classes are winding down now, and all she’s got left are the practicum and then the exam, and she’ll be certified. Hopefully she’ll be able to find a job quickly. James is always on her case about money. There’s never enough of it, and they fight, fight all the goddamn time, over who incurred the data charges on the phone bill, and who overdrew their checking account by using a shitty bodega ATM and getting walloped with the fees, who ate lunch out when they should have packed it, who splurged, once, when it was pouring rain, on a cab. He scrutinizes everything: their bank statements, her check stubs, the receipts from the grocery store.

 

~*~

 

"What’s this one, here?" he’ll say, with a Duane Reade bag rustling in his hand. "Did you buy cigarettes again?"

"Give me that!" she snatches the empty bag from his hand, heart pounding. It had been a mistake, an impulse buy around the corner from the hospital after being talked down to by one white-coated doctor too many, the fucking arrogant pricks. 

"Waste of goddamn money," snaps James, and then she snaps back. They will scream at one another for twenty minutes, moving from one corner of the cramped apartment to the next, no A/C, just the whirring of the pedestal fan to mask their escalating shouts. After they're finished, lungs burning, anger high, one of two things will happen. They will either have sex, or James will leave. A year ago it was a lot more of the first one. Maria is increasing thankful now, when it’s the second.

This time he leaves after she screams, calls him a bastard, and slams the door to the bathroom, because some days that feels like the only place where she can hide. Maria sits on the toilet with her head in her hands. She wills herself not to cry until he is gone, and when the door finally creaks shut, the footsteps echoing down the hall as he leaves the building, does she give herself permission to heave a few, dry sobs, and then she stands up, splashes cold water on her face, and tells herself to stop before she gets a headache.

Fuck James, she’s having a fucking cigarette. Fuck him.

"Goddamn it," she says, after she’s torn up the front room looking for it, once she realizes what he’s done. She chases him down to the street, but James is long gone and he’s taken her purse. "Fuck," says Maria when she realizes that yes, he has her wallet, and her phone, and her gym card, which means she’s trapped at the house until he decides to return her things, and with them, her freedom.

 

~*~

 

“Thanks,” she says, again, and boy does she mean it. She takes a drag, exhales. God, it’s hot. Too bad James ran out with all her money. A frozen yogurt would be all right, right about now. A paleta, a lemonade. There might be enough change in the laundry jar for one of those. Maria licks her lips, tastes ash and sweat. “You live around here?”

He lifts his chin to indicate the building they’re standing right outside of. “Right up there,” he tells her, and gives her a look. She raises an eyebrow, he coughs.

“You live alone?” she asks, and looks down at the cigarette. She’s smoked it almost down to the filter. Her hand is shaking. There’s no ashtray, so she flicks it out into the street. A cab immediately runs over it and crushes it flat against the pavement. When it reappears from beneath the wheels, the ember has gone out.

“Uh,” he says, following suit with his own butt. He scratches the back of his neck with his hand. “I don’t. But no one’s home. They’re all out of town.”

 _They_ her brain says. That means a partner, girlfriend or wife. Kids, probably, he has that exhausted parent look about him, that says he’s not had a decent night of sleep since his woman went into labor. His hair is greasy around the temples, a few wiry gray ones poking out from the sloppy ponytail it’s pulled into. He’s cute enough, she supposes, but the main appeal right now is that he’s not James, and he has a full pack of Parliaments.

Maria cocks her head. One sandaled foot scratches the back of her other leg.

“You have A/C?” she asks.

“I can turn it on,” he assures her, and flashes a quick smile. “Come inside.”

 

~*~

 

An hour later she is splayed on his couch with his head in between her legs, her arms thrown up over her head and grasping desperately at the arm of the couch. He’d offered her a drink and she’d accepted. He'd kissed her and she'd let him. There were toys on the floor, a bin of blocks, Lego castles in various stages of completion. Maria had laid her head so she faced away from the window, thinking it would help if she couldn’t see them. It didn’t matter. There were signs of them everywhere -- drawings tacked up on the fridge, a high chair at the dining table, bins by the door overflowing with shoes, tiny and adult alike. Baby Mary Janes and sensible heels. She wonders what his wife is like. 

“God, you taste good,” he says, and presses a kiss to the inside of her thigh. His lips are wet, hair even more askew then when they’d started. Maria feels a laugh bubble up inside her chest. How long has it been since she’s heard that, since James had repaid the favor for her? Too fucking long, she thinks, and rubs her heel against his back. His t-shirt rucks up and down against his skin as she moves it on him.

“Why you stopping?” she teases, and rubs her fingers over his damp chin, his bottom lip. He chases them with his teeth, bites the pad of her thumb, and returns to his previous position. His hands are small, but they are backed up by a wiry strength. With his hands underneath her he lifts her ass up from the couch and fits his mouth around her again. His beard itches and tickles. This time the laugh comes out. She kicks her heel against his back, hard.

“Shit,” she says. His tongue is relentless, and just when she’s close, feeling like she’s got the pattern of his movements down, and is giving herself permission to stop thinking about it, and just fucking feel it already, he changes the motion, and her orgasm recedes like the tide.

He pulls off again, noses at her clit, and then pulls her flush against his face. One hand snakes up to rest on her belly, and though he is enjoying it as much as she is, he’s watching her, eyes darting between her legs and up to her face, registering every gasp and hitch of breath.

In the end it takes her by surprise. She’s so wet from his attention that she hardly notices a finger, two fingers, inside her, the other hand under her ass as he presses the length of his thumb against her asshole. He slurps up against her clit, makes her whole lower half shake with the force of it, and Maria spasms, twists, writhes, screams.

She finishes. He kisses her thighs, her stomach, until she’s got her breath back and he can do it again. The final time he fingers her expertly as she rubs herself off the way she likes, three fingers in a clockwise motion, so quick it makes her hand cramp. He shoves a hand down the front of his pants then and beats off in time to the undulating movements of his fingers inside her.

“Fuck,” says Maria, when it’s clear they’re both spent. She flings an arm over her eyes and slaps his face away when he goes in for a fourth time. “Stop, baby, that hurts.”

“Sorry,” he pouts, and sits up. He wipes his mouth with the side of his hand, looks down at it, and frowns. “One sec,” he bounds up from the couch like he’s late for an appointment. Maria closes her legs and tugs at the hem of her tank top where it’s ridden up to expose her stomach.

She hears the sound of running water, the flush of the toilet. “Drink?” he asks, when he comes back into the room. His hair’s been scraped back up, this time into a half-assed attempt at a bun. There’s sweat on his temples and his face is flushed.

When she speaks, Maria’s voice comes out scratchy. “Sure,” she says, and rolls over onto her side. Her underwear are lying on the coffee table, just out of easy reach. When she sits to retrieve them, the deepest muscles in her core protest the movement. She scans her legs and stomach for bruises, finds nothing to incriminate her, and pulls them on. Her jean shorts are shoved in between the couch cushions and she wriggles into those as well.

Her stomach growls, a reminder there's nothing in the fridge besides a jar of natural peanut butter and a couple of diet Vitamin Waters. "Do you want to get food?" she asks, hoping that he'll spring for it. "There's a diner I go to sometimes," she says, because they know her there, let her run a balance when she can't pay.

"Okay," he says, and flashes her another charming smile. "I'm pretty hungry, too." 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr being a bad person [@pitcherplant.](pitcherplant.tumblr.com)


End file.
